Posts Tagged ‘Biblical archaeology’

It’s old news by now (The Illitegerati: Not Breaking News), but a group of filmmakers funded by evangelists found Noah’s Ark in Turkey. Again. As everyone is reporting, these people say it’s 99.9% certain that it’s Noah’s Ark, which sounds cool and all, and even better when you realize their reasons are as follows:

1. That thingie is totally boat shaped

2. Really really want it to be Noah’s Ark

The other best part is the amount of effort the other crackpot biblical archaeologists are putting into proving this Ark a fake, because how can you not love something that uses scientific evidence then follows it up with the following ad:

Yes, Noah’s Ark is completely real! Now find out “what you don’t Noah” about the story as well as your spectacular destiny they rarely ever mention in church in this autographed No. 1 best-seller!

Looking into this story I found out that there’s a lot I don’t Noah (get it?) about proving that the Old Testament is 100% real, true and definitely happened just like they say it did. After all, the most important part of faith is using scientifically gathered evidence to ensure that you’re absolutely right about the minutest details of everything you believe.

I’ll go into the scientific explanations of Noah’s Ark another time–there are plenty, and they are good— so now we can talk about one Ron Wyatt, who keeps finding biblical stuff.

First, I should say that there are two types of biblical archaeologists. Some are archaeologists who study the same approximate time period and place of the Old Testament, and they turn up some pretty interesting stuff. For example, no one thought the Hittites were real for a long time, or that Sargon I was a real Assyrian king. But, even though people like you and me think that stuff is pretty cool, it’s not a big fucking ship.

The other kind of biblical archaeologists grabs a Bible and uses it like a Lonely Planet guide to the Middle East. They do not carefully comb through records of ancient cultures written in cuneiform to discover new lineages. Oh no. They climb mountains and find arks in the morning before taking a little swim in the Red Sea and finding ancient chariot wheels in the afternoon. Right where the Bible said they’d be.

The important thing here, of course, is that we prove that what we believe is 100% true and therefore worthy of being believed, so we’re going to go look for it because this book that we believe to be true says so, and we believe the book because we found this rock that… oh. Oh my head hurts.

Enjoy, and try not to giggle with delight next time that one guy you know brings up how they found the Ark.